Monday, October 15, 2012

The original Blue Cheer's only live TV appearance? The songs themselves can be heard on Live And Unreleased Vol 1, but Steve Allen's questions, comments and jests give a look in as established show biz meets the new world order, represented here by practitioners so Neanderthal that red flags went up even in Haight-Ashbury. Allen cracks plenty of jokes at the band's expense, introducing them as, "The source of the annoying hum", but seems genuinely curious as he counts amp heads and speaker cabinets, asking Leigh Stephens, "And what function does the Fuzz Face, uh... fulfill?" He's laughing with these fearsome creatures, in contrast to Tonight Show guest host Bob Newhart, who seems to regard The Byrds as nothing more than incompetent clowns. Considerably more subterranean are The Holy Modal Rounders at Detroit's Chess Mate coffeehouse in 1965, freak flags flying. Featured are several self-penned masterpieces years before their official release, the crowd roaring loudest for the most deranged of them - Indian War Whoop. Clearly these were different times. Television spat out a neurotic tangle of sixties folk punk free jazz psychedelia for the next generation and those to come. Ornette Coleman coming through a Rolling Stones barrage, as Mikal Gilmore put it. Cleveland was their first booking outside New York, arranged by Tim Wright and Peter Laughner of Pere Ubu. Razor sharp from recently completed Marquee Moon sessions, Television closed out 1976 with four nights at CBGB, moving to the Palladium for a New Year's Eve gala with John Cale and the Patti Smith Group. Below you will find Tom and the Fender Jaguar he fitted with Danelectro lipstick pickups to increase the scream.

No,not Blue Cheer's only "live" TV appearance.(See "Feathers from Your Tree" on YouTube)But the one appearance that still hasn't been available to the world at large.Steve Allen has a site selling all the old shows,but you have to have more than a fan- intrest to get them.